Judgment day

Michael Kinsley shows the lie in conservative complaints over "activist" judges. He also makes a point about Roe v. Wade that is not original but which bears repeating:

Complaints about judicial activism are a habit left over from powerlessness. They seem especially retro when held up against today's ambitious Republican judicial agenda. With one apparent exception, the major items on it are demands for federal judges to override Congress or states' rights. Republicans cheer, for example, when courts overturn state or federal -- or even private -- affirmative action programs, and they boo when such programs are allowed to continue unmolested. They have great hopes -- largely unrealized, so far -- for the "takings" clause of the Fifth Amendment as a tool for overturning environmental regulations or any other government policies that might reduce the value of someone's property. There is even a move afoot in the Senate to have Democratic filibusters against Bush's judicial nominees ruled unconstitutional. That would be activism squared.

And let's not forget that the Bush administration owes its very existence to the boldest act of judicial activism in a generation: the Supreme Court ruling that settled the 2000 presidential election dispute. Bush v. Gore made imaginative use of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause to reverse the Florida Supreme Court's interpretation of its own state election laws.
Republicans will protest, sincerely if not always correctly, that these examples are all legitimate interpretations of the Constitution and not just invitations for judges to take a power trip. But that's the point. One person's constitutional interpretation is another person's judicial rampage. Neither party has a magic formula for determining which is which, and neither can resist trying to enact its agenda through judicial fiat when it gets the chance.

The "apparent" exception to the activist nature of the Republican judicial wish list is abortion. Although I am pro-choice, I was taught in law school, and still believe, that Roe v. Wade is a muddle of bad reasoning and an authentic example of judicial overreaching. I also believe it was a political disaster for liberals. Roe is what first politicized religious conservatives while cutting off a political process that was legalizing abortion state by state anyway. Three decades later, that awakened giant controls the government.

Of course, Kinsley reveals that the Republicans are hypocrites in their answer to Roe:

But has anybody read the 2004 Republican platform on abortion? It doesn't merely call for reversal of Roe v. Wade. It calls for "legislation to make it clear that the 14th Amendment's protections apply to unborn children," and for judges who believe likewise. If fetuses are "persons" under the 14th Amendment, which guarantees all persons "equal protection of the law," abortion will be illegal whether a state or Congress wants to legalize it or not. More than that: There could be no legal distinction between the rights of fetuses and the rights of human beings after birth. So, just for example, a woman who procured an abortion would have to be prosecuted as if she had hired a gunman to murder her child. The doctor would have to be treated like the gunman. If the state had a death penalty, it would have to apply to both. And the party that now controls all three branches of government says this is already the case. Legislation is only needed to "make it clear," and judges are needed who will enforce it.

But no "activism," please. The Republican Party can't stand that.